A&E departments 'face collapse'

Casualty departments could “collapse” if urgent changes are not made, doctors and managers warned today.

A review by the College of Emergency Medicine, based on more than half of A&E units, said they faced their biggest challenge for a decade, with shortages of doctors and too many patients.

The Foundation Trust Network said some hospitals were losing millions of pounds because of a faulty funding system. To encourage fewer A&E admissions, hospitals are only paid 30 per cent of the normal fee for an A&E case when numbers rise above a set level.

FTN chief executive Chris Hopson said that if this does not change “the A&E system’s going to fall over”. The number of patients attending casualty departments is up 50 per cent in a decade.